


I can only tell you what it feels like

by Lizz_88 (Bluejay00)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, M/M, Physical Abuse, Sibling Incest, Substance Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluejay00/pseuds/Lizz_88
Summary: Dean has a secret only Cas knows about, and vice versa. They do not cope well with the things they hide, or with each other.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Kudos: 22





	I can only tell you what it feels like

**Author's Note:**

> Graphic depictions of an unhealthy, abusive relationship, that will not get better by the end of this story. It is not my intention to glorify or romanticize such a relationship in any way. However, such relationships happen, and it's not an easy ride for the people trapped in them. That is what I wanted to focus on in this story.
> 
> Many thanks to Candygramme for awesome beta job. All remaining mistakes are mine.

"'M awake," Dean mutters against warm skin, thick tendrils of sleep lulling him back into unconsciousness. The insistent alarm of his phone stops yelling, which he takes as a reason to keep his eyes firmly shut. The pillows swallow him up. The warm body curled around him a comforting weight, endless warm, naked skin on his own, covers soft as whispers making waking up pretty low on his to-do list. He tries to focus back on his dream, the images evaporating like soap bubbles the harder he tries to hold onto them.

"Come on. You have to get up."

Fingers stroke down his spine, not stopping until they reach his lower back, hand rubbing softly, the other one pushing hair back from his face in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture. He sighs contentedly, inhales the smell of sweat and sex.

"Dean..."

"Fuck off."

A frustrated sound comes from the chest under his ear. "Don't make me drag you out of bed, and don't wait until your brother comes barging in, bitching about being late for a second time this week." There's a warning edge to the voice now, and Dean reluctantly blinks his room into focus. A thin sliver of early morning not-quite sunlight spills through the curtains, bathing the room in a soft glow, covering up the evidence of the mess they made last night. Crisp morning air drifts over them from the cracked open window, as if he needed any more reasons to stay right where he is.

"'M comfy."

"I know." The hand in his hair slides down his neck to his chest, pushing him backwards a little. 

Groaning, he meets Cas's too-awake blue eyes, taking in the amusement and choosing to interpret it as the sadism it clearly is. "I hate you." He starts rolling over on his back, but he doesn't make it even halfway there when Cas's shriek freezes him. He turns his head, about to demand what the fuck that was good for, when he sees Cas's face drawn tightly in pain.

"What?" Dean's hand runs over Cas's shoulder, down his chest, mapping out skin and rolling back into him with the movement.

Cas lets go of the breath he'd been holding, biting on his lip tightly. "Wrist," he forces out, as he carefully moves the arm Dean had rolled over, cradling it to his chest.

Dean stares at him for a moment, images and words from last night filtering back into the present, tightening his skin in familiar annoyance, but he puts it aside at the look on Cas's face.

"Lemme see?" He sits up, holds his hand out, and Cas reluctantly put his arm in Dean's hand. He inspects Cas's wrist, notices it's a little swollen, but no bones are sticking out. That tends to be a comforting sign. "Can you move it?"

Cas moves his hand from side to side, the corner of his mouth twitching minutely, but Dean is looking closely, and he knows what to look for.

"I'm fine." Cas glances up at him, messy hair brushing over his forehead, sleep-warmth clinging to his skin. "Ribs hurt a hell of a lot worse than this, but I'll live."

Dean smirks, and lets go of Cas's wrist. He leans in quickly to brush his lips against Cas's in something other people may mistake for an affectionate good morning kiss. "Shouldn't have fucking hit me then."

(\\*/)

"Oh, good." Sam looks up from his laptop when Cas and Dean enter the kitchen. He's sat at the breakfast bar, already dressed in jeans and a hoodie, coffee thermos at his side, ready to go. "Glad to see you both survived whatever nearly had the neighbors calling the cops last night. Again." His disapproving eyes follow both of them as they move around him to put something together that will pass for breakfast. Coffee and toast.

Cas pours them two mugs, while Dean puts bread in the toaster, both of them carefully avoiding Sam's scrutiny.

"Jesus, Dean, did you "run into a wall" again?"

Dean reaches up a hand to touch the bruise on his left cheek, winces a little at the sting. He sets a plate with two pieces of toast down on the counter, wordlessly takes his mug from Cas. 

"Your brother is many things, but clumsy isn't one of them," Cas says, eyebrow raised at Sam, as if he's daring him to say something. 

"De-" Sam starts, but Dean is not in the mood to entertain another conversation about this. Not when he's about to be trapped in a car with Sam during rush hour trying to get both their asses to work on time, not when it will no doubt trigger another heated argument between him and Cas, and definitely not when it is taking all his energy to keep himself upright and looking like he gets an acceptable number of hours of sleep a night.

"Save it." Dean holds up a hand. "Gave as good as I got, so please, don't start this shit again." He rubs a hand over the good side of his face, absently wondering what story he's going to spin at work this time, and how many days it has been since he last shaved. Not that anyone at the garage really cares how he spends his free time, or what he looks like. He spends most of his time under a car, anyway, but this is the third time in two weeks that he will show up at work looking like he auditioned for Fight Club. Something about the time of year, when everything just ups and _dies_ around him, or maybe the chill in the air driving him inside... something makes him wind too tightly, and Cas seems to enjoy digging his nails into the fraying edges of his sanity to see what's behind it.

He sees Sam bite his tongue, and he knows exactly how much Sam would like to share his thoughts about this fucked up situation. He also knows Sam isn't going to. Perhaps he's slowly coming around to the idea that it's futile. Cas eats his toast next to him, one hand stuffed in the pocket of his hoodie, knee tucked against Dean's, and Dean curses himself when he realizes he's leaning towards Cas without even noticing. They eat in silence for a few minutes, the tension thick in the air, but familiar enough by now that it doesn't faze Dean.

"Alright. Fun and relaxing as this is, I gotta go." Cas stands up, eyes searching the small apartment for the belongings he'd scattered last night. Keys. Phone. Headphones. His eyes brush over Dean quickly, a silent conversation that is neither an apology nor a see you later, but still settles something inside him. An instant later, he's out the door without another word, leaving Sam and Dean in silence. 

The clock slowly ticks closer to the absolute latest time they have to leave, if Dean wants to drop Sam off at the university before making it to work on time.

"Did you at least put ice on it?"

"I said I was fine." Yeah, Dean is sick and tired of this entire conversation, and he'd happily stand in line to get a refund on this entire day already. "Do you have all your shit? I'm not driving back again just because you forgot your extra special glasses."

"They're not glasses, they're _eye-trackers_ , and I wasn't even supposed to take them home to begin with, I just wanted to try something out." 

"Ok, Harry Potter," Dean smiles, pleased to have successfully derailed the conversation about him and Cas. "Let's get you to work then."

He drives in silence, thoughts drifting along the beat of the music playing quietly in the background. Sam is an immovable force next to him, his brooding presence too big for the car, sucking the air out of the space between them. 

"So, what's on your schedule for today?" 

Sam huffs out a breath in lieu of an answer, continues to glare at the cars in front of them, as if each one has personally offended him.

"I do enjoy our talks," Dean nods, "such a pleasant way to start the day."

"Beats having to cover up bruises your boyfriend gave you?"

"I'm not covering up anything, am I?" Dean's fingers tighten around the steering wheel, the words drumming up an unpleasant melody he doesn't want to listen to. "And he's not my boyfriend."

(\\*/)

A few weeks later, there are no leaves left on the trees, and Dean has switched his light canvas jacket for his lined leather one. Now, when he drives Sam to the university, it is still dark outside, the world suspended in slumber, and it effectively stops Sam's desire to talk about the relationship Dean is not having with Cas. It also means Sam spends long nights at the lab, because it's "grant season", and he takes a bus home instead of riding shotgun with Dean at least three nights a week. Once or twice, Dean has woken up to an empty apartment, only to realize Sam had fallen asleep in his lab. He's proud of Sam, happy he's happy, but he can't stop the tightening of his smile when the Sam-shaped hole in his world grows a little bigger each day. Inevitably moving them closer to the day where Sam will announce he's moving out, needs to do his own grown-up things, in his own grown-up place. Doesn't need Dean anymore. The financial need to share a place hasn't been there at least since Sam started grad school, started teaching, but neither one of them has brought it up. So instead, it looms over Dean, and he wakes up every day wondering if today is the day.

It's another late night in the lab for Sam, so Dean drives himself home, picks up some supplies on his way. It's dark when he gets home now, too, but he sees the lights on through the window, and he walks up the stairs with a little less gloom in his steps. He's not surprised to find Cas curled up on the couch with his laptop, seamlessly blending into the space like he belongs there. Dean dumps his bag on the floor, hangs his coat over a chair, then makes a beeline for the fridge to grab a beer.

"Thought you were staying at your place tonight?"

"Yeah?" Cas puts his laptop on the table, and turns to Dean, looking him up and down slowly. "So you figured you'd cash out your loyalty card at the liquor store, and have all the J's keep you company?"

Dean keeps his face blank, follows Cas's eyes to his bag sitting on the floor, brown paper sticking out like the fingerprint that will convict him in alcoholic court. "Just figured I'd try getting some early sleep."

Cas stands up, and the apartment feels too small, the walls too heavy, circling them, blurring the surroundings until it's just the two of them, and the sizzle between them that could go either way. "Sam know you're drinking the good stuff?"

"Fuck off, Cas, I'm not in the mood."

"Tough." Cas stops in front of him, eyes locked on where Dean's lips close around the beer bottle. "There are other ways to help you sleep. You don't need to drink yourself unconscious."

"This saves time," Dean smiles, the ice feeling a little thin under his heavy work boots. One push too far to one side, one word that's a little too sharp, coming from either of them, and this will be another one of those nights. He's too tired. Not even in the mood to piss Cas off, or point out that as far as healthy coping mechanisms are concerned, Cas outperforms him on at least a bi-weekly basis.

Maybe Cas is tired, too. He tilts his head, raises an eyebrow, and sniffs the air between them. "You smell."

"Uh-huh. Wanna help me wash my back?" 

And so what, if they get a little too rough? So what if he slams Cas against the tiles with a little bit more force than necessary, or if Cas's teeth draw blood where he bites into Dean's shoulder as Dean fucks him fast and hard against the wall of the shower? No bruises in places that can be seen this time, so nothing for Sam to bitch about, and nothing for the girl at the gas station to stare at when he inevitably winds up back there tomorrow evening. And if Dean sways on his feet and the world goes black for a moment when Cas pulls his hair the wrong side of painful, and he comes inside Cas with a shout he doesn't try to muffle, it's a night not spent in the emergency room, and they still get rid of their pent up energy, falling into bed in a tangle of limbs, and lips, and no words needed. It works.

(\\*/)

It wasn't always like this. Or, maybe that is just what Dean likes to tell himself sometimes. After seven years of shared memories, many of them less than pleasant, it's hard to keep track of what grew into a response to something external to them, and what was always there to begin with. He'd met Cas when he was 24, Cas 28, in a bar - Gabriel's bar - a moody writer with a self-destructive tendency that mirrored his own. Back then, Dean had a tighter leash on it; he had Sammy to think of. Sam needed him, still, to hold it together, a responsibility he knew like he knew breathing. Sam needed a place to come home to after long nights in the university library studying for tests, researching papers. But even then, Dean had needed to give in every now and then. And Cas was happy to indulge. It never got too far out of hand, but it was always there, gasoline meets match, and it just worked. First, as friends, but at some point, over the years, the lines got blurred and they turned into whatever they were now. Cas at once the stab wound and the stitches.

They fight over everything and nothing. Cas's "writing research" that he follows into dark alleys and darker corners of his mind. Dean's tendency to drink himself to sleep on a good night, to drink and go look for trouble on a less than good one. Cas's snoring, messiness, winding up of Sam for sport, Dean's humming, tidiness, assprint glued to the stool in the corner of Gabriel's bar. The fact that both of them know each other too damn well, and neither of them are shy about pressing the button that hurts the most once they get into it.

"Goddamn it, Dean." Sam hands him a beer from the fridge, looks him over slowly, as if he's cataloguing whether Dean has any other injuries he can't see right now.

Dean nods, takes the cold beer, and puts it to his cheek. It draws the heat from the cut, numbs the skin a little. He wishes Cas would quit wearing that fucking ring Dean bought him four years ago for his birthday. Motherfucking piece of metal has split his skin more often than is reasonable. Then again, Cas is probably thinking the same thing about the ring Dean sometimes wears, that’s on his finger right this moment.

"Why do you stay with him?"

Dean leans against the counter, taken aback by the bluntness of the question that comes out of nowhere at the same time it really doesn't. Not the first time they have had this particular conversation. But maybe the first time in a long time that Sam sounds anything other than pissed off. He sounds like he genuinely wants to know, as if the whole thing is a mystery he would like to figure out. Somehow, that is both easier and more difficult to deal with.

"Tried leaving him about as often as he tried to leave me." He twists the cap off his beer, tosses it in the trash with practiced ease. "It doesn't stick." He takes a long sip, eyes meeting Sam's concerned ones. He'd like to make Sam understand, maybe, but he doesn't even really get it himself. This odd draw, elastic band snapping him back to Cas every time he gets far enough away. Sam doesn't see twenty percent of what goes on between them. He sees the things that stand out, the bruises, he hears the shouting matches that wake him up in the middle of the night. He tastes the tension in the room nine out of ten nights Cas spends the night, and perhaps he hears the less-but-only-a-little violent things that go on in Dean's bedroom when Cas stays over and they manage to get through a night without snapping at each other. Dean swallows, tries to draw the words together in a way that may draw a picture that is not as fucked up as he knows it looks from the outside. What he settles on doesn't answer anything Sam may like to know. "I dunno what to tell you, man, we're just that messed up."

"But how..." Sam gestures with his bottle, shakes his head. "There can't be any part of this that makes either of you happy. You seem ok for a day, sometimes a week, and then you get into it again..."

"Yes. We do. All the time." Dean shrugs, picks at the label on his bottle. "Doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day, he's mine as much as I'm his, and no matter how fucked up it may look to anyone else, it works."

"Does it?" Sam's voice is small, out of place for his age, Dean's mood, and this whole situation. This is his confused little brother who's asking Dean why he can't have a pet dinosaur, or why dad spent their last money on beer instead of a Christmas tree . Now, it's his 27 year old brother asking him how Dean's violently abusive relationship is making him happy. Boy, how they have grown up.

"Let it go, Sammy. We're fine. Everything is fine." He takes his beer and crosses the kitchen to his room.

"Be careful?" Sam calls after him, making Dean pause on his doorstep.

"Always."

(\\*/)

"Why are you out here shopping for pneumonia?"

Dean doesn't look over from where he's leaning against the hood of his car, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, but the biting chill has numbed most of him by this point. His head is tilted back to look at the dark canvas stretched over them, too cloudy to make out any stars; even the sky is suffocating tonight. Maybe it will snow. "Had to get out for a bit." Another night of Sam pushed to the limit, applying what he learned in his clinical psychology class that really wasn't for him, digging a little too deep at Dean's demons with loud words and harsh accusations. Rattling off features of substance use disorder like everything that was wrong with Dean could be reduced to a grocery list of symptoms. One step removed from asking Dean why he couldn't just be normal. Not those precise words, but it was the absence of the words that made them more palpable.

Cas is a warm weight next to him, shoulder digging into Dean's, his gloved hands clenched tightly by his sides. "And sitting in my parking lot is helping with the claustrophobia because..."

Dean watches Cas's words drift over the cold air, evaporating slowly. They share the silence for a while, Cas fidgeting, Dean too cold to move much. 

"Sam thinks we're fucked up."

Cas grunts in response. "Can you blame him?"

A lonely street lamp casts long shadows over the parking lot, distorting their surroundings to a point they're not recognizable from what they look like in the day. Everything looks different in the dark, and some of the words he would never consider saying out loud during the day seem smaller in the dark. "He just lost it, fuck, like he's..." Dean lets the words trail off, and Cas doesn't pick them up.

Cas turns toward him then, warm breath against Dean's cold cheek, heavy weight of that blue stare pinning him in place, tethering him to the car behind him, caught and held. "Dean." Cas's lips ghost over his jaw, teeth scraping lightly over stubble, making Dean shiver. 

"Does Gabriel lose his shit over you, like Sammy does over me?"

Fingers dip under his jacket, under his shirt, scratchy wool over the bare skin of his back as Cas pulls back so he can look at Dean. "No one loses his shit over anyone the way Sam does over you."

(\\*/)

Dean startles at the soft click of the door, eyes drawn to Sam's bedroom door down the hall first. He sits up a little straighter, hand curled a little tighter around his glass of whiskey. Soft footsteps from the other side of the room, Cas shuffling out from Dean's room, blinking against the light over the stove. He rubs a hand over his face, as Dean looks him over slowly. Faded gray pajama pants hang low on his hips, smooth, tanned skin, that Dean knows like his own. His hair is standing up like a hedgehog, bare feet peeking out from the slightly too long pajamas.

"What're you doing?" Cas asks, voice rough with sleep as he walks closer slowly, bare feet making muffled thuds on the wooden floor. He sits down across from Dean at the table, head leaning heavily in his hand. Dean follows Cas's eyes down to the glass in front of him.

"Can't sleep." He smooths a finger over the rim of the glass, traces the glint of the light, the small drop of amber clinging to the inside. Third night in a row that he can't sleep, can't unwind, powerless to stop the thoughts, the images, that marinade his brain, and _nothing_ distracts. Nothing is enough when he closes his eyes. He studies the glass, avoids Cas's eyes, even if he knows hiding anything from Cas is about as likely to happen as Sam announcing he's dropping out of grad school to become a professional dancer.

Cas's hand slides across the narrow table top to settle over Dean's; warm, solid on his own, and he squeezes softly. Dean looks up, and he knows Cas knows, doesn't need to put it into words he could never find within himself anyway. It annoys him to no end, and it's the only comfort he has. This is the knife edge he balances on, caught between wanting Cas to judge, to point out he's a fucking deviant, leave him, and just wanting Cas to make it a little bit better for a little while. And no, he doesn't really want Cas to leave, but given the context, Cas's understanding, hell, his damn near facilitation, is questionable to say the least. It would almost make him hate himself more, the thought of hurting Cas like that, but it doesn't seem to.

So he doesn't protest when Cas pulls the glass from Dean's hand, and sets it aside. The bottle follows, Dean's eyes following the certain movements of Cas's hand, finally a point of focus that takes him away from his traitorous thoughts.

Cas gets up slowly, and Dean's heart skips a beat in sudden fear that he's read the situation wrong. He looks up at Cas in front of him, knows the desperation that sits heavy on the back of his tongue is drawn on his face, but Cas sidesteps it, reaches out a hand, waiting for Dean to take it. And they both know, Dean isn't going to say no, can never say no, not once he reaches this point. Not when he gets so far that the only thing that can stitch him back up is to live in his illusions and dreams for a night. They both know, Cas will give him those.

He takes Cas's hand, gets up too, and follows Cas to the couch. Light from outside filters through the curtains, adding a grossly misplaced ambiance to their surroundings. Dean chews on his lip, looks down the corridor in the direction of Sam's room, but then Cas's hand is under his chin, pushing until they're face to face.

"Stop that."

Dean leans into the touch, reaches out without lifting a hand, and he's practically shaking with need. He'd ask for it, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't have to. Cas knows.

"I-"

"No," Cas says, voice low, deep in a way that makes the hairs on Dean's arms stand up. "I know."

"But I-"

"It's alright."

Maybe it is. Even if it is, Dean needs to protest. Pretend that he's not sure, just so that he can cling to the part of himself that can still look in the mirror tomorrow, the part he can tell himself doesn't really want this, isn't really asking this from Cas. It's become easier to fool himself over the years, to twist things to a point where everything is fine, and he can even pretend it's Cas who's the deviant, Cas who gets off just on knowing what's in Dean's head. If he does, that is not something they talk about.

His eyes slip shut when lips touch his own, his mind slipping a little with it, giving up control to allow himself to go with it. It's not difficult. The same sense of familiarity is there between them. The details are off, the taste of Cas's lips not quite the same - spicier - but it doesn't matter. It's good enough and as close as he can get. He opens his eyes, stares at Cas's blue eyes, heat pooling low in his stomach as thoughts and morals fight for space in his head.

"Close your eyes," Cas whispers, hands on Dean's hips pushing him down on the couch. He leans over Dean, lips brushing over his ear. "Easier to pretend if you can't see."

Dean shivers, but does as he's told. He stretches out on the couch, head on the arm rest, Cas's warm weight settling on top of him. The world zeroes in on the body on top of him, a perfect fit in between his legs. The hands in his hair, stroking, comforting, and the lips on his own, teasing, tongue tasting, sending hair fine tremors up and down his spine, making him ache with want.

He arches up when the weight lifts off him, keeps his eyes tightly closed. Fingers slip into the waistband of his sweatpants, and pull them down slowly, warm lips tasting every inch of his skin as it's revealed. A tongue licks over the curve of his hip, warm breath teasing the skin, and he pushes his hips up, silently asking for more. Cas is silent, nothing but soft breaths, and it adds to the fantasy, makes it that much easier to let himself drift away on a cloud of imagination, bending reality until it's just what he wants it to be. The cooler night air drifts over his skin, goose bumps breaking out, and he reaches for Cas when he moves back over him. Cas's naked skin warms his own, pressing into him, so familiar, and he's hard already, desperate for anything Cas will give him.

Cas settles back between his thighs, his lips back on Dean's, kissing lazily, messily, before he drags his lips down to Dean's ear. Soft, sinful whispers that pull a moan from Dean's lips, fingers curling on Cas's shoulders, pulling him closer. Cas's fingers brush over his lips, and he opens his mouth, drawing them in. He sucks and licks around them, muscles in his stomach pulling tight at the thought of what he looks like, spread out on the couch, sucking on Cas's fingers like a cheap whore. Seems Cas is not entirely unaffected either, if the hard cock riding the curve of his hip is anything to go by, and he pushes the thought to the back of his mind, letting go of the here and now, focuses on what it feels like instead of what it _doesn't_ feel like.

The fingers pull from his mouth, saliva dripping onto his chest, and he knows what comes next, licks his lips in anticipation until he feels the slick digits stroke over his hole slowly, circling, teasing, pulling his body tight like a guitar string, and never fucking enough.

"Please," he whispers, trying to push his hips down, warm breath still on his face, knows he's being watched from close by.

When both fingers push in at the same time, it's too soon and too much, pain wrapped in pleasure tingling up his spine as his back arches off the couch. His hands claw at Cas's shoulders, clinging, holding on. A low chuckle right above him, and it's not quite the right sound, but he twists it until it is perfect. Pretends that's the voice talking to him, the voice whispering in his ear again, telling him he wants to be inside him, wants to fuck him until he forgets his own name. Pretends it's those fingers twisting and scissoring inside him, rushed and impatient; a necessity rather than anything intimate, and that is all too familiar, too. The images blend on the backs of his eyelids, reality blurring into his memory, and he's right back there, on this same couch, all those years ago.

He doesn't see Cas when the fingers are replaced with a hard dick, because he never opens his eyes. Too lost in a fantasy he can't get back any other way. The force of Cas's thrusts pushes him up on the couch, head dangling off the armrest now, blood rushing the wrong way in all the right ways. It's not slow and dragged out, it's rough, and quick, and bordering on painful, and _exactly_ what he needs. Scratching an itch he hasn't bothered to try reaching, turning him inside out and putting him back together as if Cas is following a manual Dean never wrote him. Muscle memory takes over, his legs wrapping around Cas's waist to pull him closer, hands slipping on sweaty skin. He clings as best he can, holding onto something that will always keep slipping through his fingers the second he thinks he's caught it.

It's not the hand - not quite large enough - closing around him that pushes him over the edge. It's the breathy words whispered in his ear, low, soft soothing lull, belying the dirty-wrong, telling him exactly what he needs to hear, turning his body to jelly as tiny pinpricks of pleasure collide under his skin, fueling each other until he arches his back and cries out, coming between them. The hand covers his mouth, making it damn near impossible to catch his breath as Cas thrusts faster, the couch protesting under their combined weight, and Dean still has his eyes squeezed tightly shut when Cas spills inside him.

The only sound in the room is the hum of the refrigerator and their gasped breaths mingling, as Dean tries to slow down the beat of his heart. Cas's weight settles on him entirely, pressing him into the springs of the couch, a haze of menthol shower gel and lingering coffee, but he doesn't want Cas to move just yet, wants to hold onto this a few moments longer. Cas kisses his neck, his lips, fingers stroking over his cheek, the string tied to him, pulling Dean back to the here and now, away from the then and there.

"Dean?"

He hates this part. Hates having to come off his cloud, plunge back into the real world again, where nothing is quite how it should be. His fingers curl in the damp hair at the back of Cas's neck, keeping Cas in place as he reluctantly blinks his eyes open.

Cas hovers above him, muscles in his arms straining to hold himself up, the fucked out look on his face an odd contrast to his eyes darkened with concern. "Hey."

Dean swallows back the bitterness before replying. "Hi."

"You alright?"

He nods slowly, running one hand up into Cas's hair to pull him down and kiss him. He hates this part, when it feels as if he's lost something that was never really his to lose, but it still hurts, still leaves him empty and missing something he's not sure he can live without. The harsh reality zinging him like the burning ember of a cigarette. Cas pulls out of him, and Dean bites his lip hard enough to draw blood. Cas's hands stroke up and down his sides, soothing, lips murmuring against the side of Dean's head, and he is so damn lucky to have Cas. Cas who doesn't judge, who goes with it, and lets Dean cling to him exactly as hard as he needs to.

"Think you can sleep now?" Cas whispers, shifting on top of him to settle more weight off Dean and onto his knees.

"Yeah." And he probably can. The restlessness that had been building in him for days is thinned out, diluted. It won't last forever, won't even last that long, but for now, it'll do.

(\\*/)

It may not seem like it to other people, except perhaps the handful that look closely, but Dean can go days not being anything other than really fond of Cas. Sometimes, the softer part that lingers somewhere in a forgotten backroom of his heart reaches for Cas, longs for him, has Dean's chest tighten and his hands restless until he's touching some part of Cas. Doesn't matter if it's falling asleep half on top of him, or having his thigh pressed against Cas's at Gabe's bar, or tangled up in the backseat of his car because sometimes they can't wait to drive home. He wonders, sometimes, which part of him is real, which part came first? The jagged edges or the softer center? He'd like to believe he was soft once and the world made him hard, but it's a lie he only lets himself believe on nights where he opens a second bottle and drinks at least until the top of the label.

It's not a part of him he likes, or would ever give words to. Perhaps because it's the same part of him that used to make sure Sammy's coat was buttoned up, and he had a sandwich in his backpack. When he was eight, and eighteen, even if Sam was less accepting of the sentiment at eighteen. Perhaps it is closer to the warmth that spreads through him when Sam walks around their apartment in his pajamas, bare feet, sleepy eyes, looking comfortable and at ease, and... vulnerable. The very thing he hates in himself is the thing that draws him closer to other people. Sam's vulnerable when he curls up on the couch with bare toes pressing against Dean's hip, when he laughs loudly enough that it sounds like bells chiming in the mountains, and when he's hunched over his laptop in the middle of the night, trying to finish a paper that holds his future in its grip, or so he believes. Cas is vulnerable when he catches Dean staring and holds the gaze. When he lets himself be naked and open, and he doesn't hide, even though he knows Dean can see all of him without making any effort to look. Maybe the flipside of vulnerability is power. Maybe he needs to stop reading Sam's undergraduate psychology books when he can't sleep.

There are rare evenings where he cooks for Sam and Cas, and they have what may pass for a relaxing evening, drinking beer in front of the TV, watching a game. Well, Sam and Dean watching the game, Cas studying the game as if it has a hidden meaning he may discover one day. They eat burgers, and chili fries, and Sam will eventually spill ketchup down the front of his shirt, and Dean's beer will inevitably slosh over the rim when he gestures at the TV too enthusiastically. And Sam and Cas will be civil, and it won't quite be like everything Sam doesn't like about the two of them is pushed aside, but it also won't be the fourth presence in the room soaking up all the attention. Dean will lean into the comfort, and he won't notice how all the pieces don't quite fit together as much as he usually does.

Sometimes, there are lazy Sundays they spend in bed - usually Dean's - tangled up in each other as soft winter light covers them in a fairytale glow. It's not always, or even usually, about sex. They can talk for hours and not notice time pass. About Cas's book, or the car Dean is working on. About Gabe, but not typically about Sam unless it's been a particular kind of week. They take turns getting supplies from the kitchen, supplies that start with coffee and bagels and slowly move to beer and sometimes a bottle of whiskey they pass between them. It's not always bad, and it's not always desperate either. Dean likes when Cas types away on his laptop next to him, propped up against the headboard, while Dean reads a book or fiddles with his ancient radio. It's homeostasis, recharging of batteries that they both need, in different ways and sometimes in exactly the same way. It lures Dean into a calm haze where he can just _be_ , without having to analyze every thought that floats around his mind. It's peace he'll never go looking for, but that he settles into when he stumbles upon it by accident.

(\\*/)

Sometimes, he doesn't see Cas for days. Cas will go into what he calls "writing mode", and he'll lock himself in his apartment and pour out all the words that don't want to stay in his head any longer over the screen of his beat-up laptop. Dean thinks a writer should have a functioning laptop, Cas thinks Dean is a heartless asshole who doesn't understand things need to have a soul, a character, to be useful. When Cas disappears, he won't pick up his phone, and Dean has learned long ago there is no point in showing up on Cas's doorstep because even if he hears the doorbell, he won't open. Even if Dean has a key, it feels too much like an invasion of privacy, and the one time he had let worry get the better of him and used the key... well. Neither Cas's coffee table nor Dean's pride had survived that particular evening.

Sometimes he doesn't see Cas for days, and sometimes, that is not a bad thing. Sometimes it is no more than Cas getting swept off his feet by a tidal wave of inspiration. He'll fall down a rabbit hole of creativity and emerge a few days later, the set of his shoulders less tense, smudges under his eyes melted away, sitting outside the garage or Dean's apartment as if he's never been anywhere else than exactly where Dean left him. Sometimes it's not a bad thing. And sometimes, it is. There is nothing particular to the build up that provides Dean with a pattern to base a prediction off of. It's not so much what Cas does, or says, it's a feeling that builds slowly in the pit of Dean's stomach over the course of a week or so, the subtle space between the words Cas doesn't say that leads Dean to the right conclusions. A hunch, something itching in the very back of his brain, something subtly out of sync. He knows when Cas's retreat is a bad thing, smells it on the air like trash left out in the sun on a hot summer day. Usually, he's pretty good at redirecting Cas away from the worst, but sometimes - once - Cas slips through his fingers when Dean isn't paying attention.

He bangs on the door twice, even as he's turning the key in the lock, heart hammering in his throat too loudly to hear anything coming from behind the door. The door pulls open and he falls forward into Cas, his relief a momentary high before it is swallowed up by panic-laced fury. He has Cas slammed up against the door before it has closed entirely, hands fisted in the fabric of Cas's thin t-shirt, pressing into him, and it's the lack of a response, Cas's eyes dull, mouth slack, the lack of _anything_ , that is gasoline on the open fire of his anger.

"The fuck were you thinking?" He hisses, shaking Cas a little, ignoring the rattle of a painting on the wall in favor of letting some of the anger that burns through his veins bubble out.

"You're not my fucking keeper, leave me the fuck alone." Cas puts his hand on Dean's chest, tries to push him off, but Dean is not moving.

"You can't fucking disappear like that." Dean shakes him again, dull thump when the back of Cas's head hits the wall, and finally, something sparks hot in Cas's eyes. They turn darker, wider, and Dean knows he's making things worse, but he can't stop. It's the fact that Cas is acting like he did nothing wrong that makes Dean want to beat him until he sees why he cannot just disappear like this. Four hours; phone left on his pillow in Dean's bed, no trace of him. Dean had been to Cas's apartment twice to find it empty, he called _everyone_ he could think of, and no one had a clue. Four hours where his mind played him a horror movie of everything that could have happened, circling the one thing he knew was likely to happen. No one else shared his alarm, but that was because no one else had any idea. No one else knew what to look for, or even had a reason to suspect that there was any reason to look at all. It placed the responsibility squarely on Dean's shoulders. Four hours of nightmare fodder for the rest of the year, and Cas is acting like nothing happened.

"Get the fuck off of me." Cas pushes him away, hard, causing Dean to stumble backwards and nearly land on his ass, but he keeps his balance and lunges without thinking. Fist swinging back, landing on Cas's cheek with a satisfying crack that stings his knuckles.

Cas's hand shoots out to the wall to keep himself upright, groan pulling from his lips, and as soon as he has his bearings again, he's on Dean, grabbing him by his shirt and dragging him along, half-stumbling until he's close enough to push Dean onto his couch.

Dean tries to kick out at Cas, but Cas moves just quickly enough to narrowly avoid his shoe, and then he's crawling over Dean, trying to pin his wrists. Dean hisses in pain when Cas pushes his knee up between Dean's legs, and he digs his nails into Cas's shoulder, trying to flip them over.

"Should've fucking told someone where you were going," Dean snarls, shaking with effort to keep himself from doing worse than he's done so far. Blood pounds in his temples, pulse racing, and there is no doubt in his mind that he could fucking kill someone right now. Not Cas, never Cas. But someone.

Cas's hand is on his throat, face an inch away from his own, and Dean struggles to get a hand up and fist it in Cas's hair. When he has a handful, he pulls it back harshly, watches Cas's face twist in pain.

"Goddamnit, I don't have to tell you where I go."

Dean puts his feet flat on the couch to get leverage, then pushes them around until they fall off the couch. He lands on top of Cas, anticipates the head butt, but Cas still manages to get his chin, the impact rattling him before his fingers dig into Cas's wrist, half-succeeding in pinning him to the floor.

"You do on the 21st of February." His breath catches in his throat when he sees Cas's eyes widen, shock frozen in them. Cas's body goes slack under him, all the fight leaving him in an instant. Like all the energy he had a moment ago has been drained out of him by Dean's words, and he sinks into the floor a little, swallowing thickly before he turns his head to the side.

No. Fuck, why the fuck did he have to say that out loud? His fingers go numb and his stomach clenches painfully at the absolutely shattered look on Cas's face. Split second, a handful of words, all it took for the color to drain from Cas's face, and his eyes to lose any of the spitting fire they had a moment ago.

"Fuck," he whispers, as Cas shakes softly underneath him, and he doesn't have the words, said too many that he cannot take back. He can't fix any of it, but _fuck_ , his own fear twisted into anger so easily. He rests his forehead on Cas's chest, hands coming up, reaching, and when he gets a tight hold on Cas's hands, they're slack in his grip.

"I..." what? Really, what? Didn't mean for that to come out like that? Didn't mean to imply what I just did there? Didn't mean to reach into your past and throw some of your darkest days at your feet to see if you'd stumble? Fucking _what_?

Cas is a marble statue underneath him, coldness seeping through his clothes into Dean's skin. A slip up like that should have been met with some reaction, he was counting on dodging a blow to the head. He expected anger, slamming doors, screaming, maybe Cas taking a few digs at him - God knows he has enough ammunition to hurt if not kill - but this silence is worse than all of the other options combined. He pushes himself back up, letting go of Cas's hands so he can support himself on his elbows, his face inches away. The glassy eyes, pressed lips, pale skin staring back at him are more familiar than he'd like, even if he hasn't seen it in a very long time. It fucking eats at him that he is the one who put it back on Cas's face now.

Every second where Cas does not respond, does nothing other than breathe shallowly over Dean's face, is a second where Dean's worry tightens its grip. Even if Cas would break down and cry, that would be preferential, but Cas doesn't cry, and Dean really fucking sucks at comfort anyway. He would take anything over this shattered to pieces, and he doesn't know how long it will take him to pick up the pieces this time, glue them back together with a fifth of whiskey and some bruises, or whatever else Cas needs to feel alive.

"Cas. Talk to me?" Dean's voice doesn't make it past a whisper, lump in his throat he can't swallow past, but he has to drag Cas out of his own head before he gets too far lost, and Dean won't be able to find him anymore.

Cas remains silent for another few minutes that feel like hours, and Dean closes his eyes briefly when Cas finally answers.

"And tell you what?"

Calm and collected, a voice and composure that could fool the entire fucking world - and that apparently includes even Cas's own brother - but Dean is not buying it. The words are too carefully measured, Cas's voice not even trembling slightly, the words cold and chipped like the icicles hanging off the gutters outside.

"I'm sorry. Shouldn't have said that." He shifts a little to get comfortable, reaches up a hand to put on the floor next to Cas's head.

Cas's eyes cut to his immediately, locking on his own with an intensity that makes him want to squirm, look away. Avoid their weight, but he can't.

"Shouldn't be."

Dean does a double take, because that... his world flips over, bile burning in his stomach. He was right. He was right to be worried, right to panic, right to leave his mind scattered across the city. The unsettled feeling that he'd been trying to write off as his own inability to coexist with his thoughts had been trying to nudge him to the right conclusion. This is a rare occasion where he really doesn't want to be right.

"What did you do?" He whispers, his hands clammy, and it still feels like he's falling; falling like he'll never hit the floor, suspended in the adrenaline-pumped sensation of being weightless and seconds away from a lethal impact.

"Dean."

"No. No, you do not get to say shit like that without explaining. What the fuck did you do?" Panic rises, thrums through him and makes his voice a tense squeak, makes it hard to think or string a sentence together whilst still focusing on what Cas is saying, but even more on what he isn't saying. Cas can't leave him to fill in the blanks on his own, not over this, he needs a detailed explanation before his stomach crawls out of his throat.

"I'm here now. Doesn't matter."

The carelessness of the statement, the disregard for himself and for Dean captured in five words, is enough for panic to bleed black into anger, and with a sense of detachment he recognizes that no one turns his feelings into a toddler's fingerpainting the way Cas does. He pushes his knees up so he can sit upright, kneeling over Cas's thighs, Cas's shiver registering but pushed aside. He fists his hands in Cas's shirt, as if he needs to convince himself that he wasn't too late, Cas is still here. "What the fuck did you do?"

"It doesn't matter," Cas repeats, shifting around until he has enough leverage to push Dean off him, and then he's on his feet in a flash, eyes darting to the door.

"Don't you fucking walk away." Dean gets up, moves a few slow steps closer to Cas to stop him from running out the door.

Cas's hands clench by his sides, eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, his breathing not quite right, and he seems to be aware of it, seems to be trying to calm himself down. "I went back there," Cas says, running a hand over his face, "figured nearly five years would be enough to be over it."

"Was it?"

"I'm here," Cas shrugs, but no, that's not an answer, either.

Dean keeps walking until he's right in front of Cas, hand reaching out to touch before he thinks about it. He touches his fingers to Cas's cheek, hates that Cas is not looking at him, putting walls in place that Dean thought he'd successfully bulldozed to the ground years ago. It's not that he can't see around them, it's that Cas feels the need to re-erect them.

He doesn't expect Cas to move forward, but a moment later Cas's lips are on his own, kissing him with a bruising desperation he can taste, hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer. There's an urgency between them, a need to re-establish something Dean didn't know they'd lost. He pushes Cas's shirt up, only breaking the kiss to pull it off, Cas's hands unbuttoning Dean's shirt and throwing that on the floor as well. They move through Cas's messy apartment to the bed, kicking off shoes, fiddling with belts, buttons, zippers, lips only parting when absolutely necessary.

Once they're both naked, Cas lets himself fall back on the bed, pulling Dean with him, over him, legs wrapping around his hips to pull him closer, arms locked around Dean's neck as if he's convinced Dean will leave him alone as soon as Cas lets go of him. Dean leans into the feeling, knows that Cas needs this - needs him. Needs to be fucked into the mattress and out of ugly memories clawing for him across the years, needs to feel Dean, believe that whatever happens, this will not change. He'll always have this. The need is clear in the way Cas's fingers claw at his shoulders, the impatient sounds he makes as Dean carefully fucks two fingers into him, knows Cas wants to feel it, feel alive, and he can be all of that. Everything Cas needs at least for now, but he knows it's no more than a bandaid on a gunshot wound. It'll hold him together for now, but it's never going to fix the internal bleeding.

So Dean does what he needs to, and he pretends he doesn't notice Cas's eyes are wet when Dean pushes into him, pretends he doesn't see Cas's throat work around words that will not spill past his lips. He just fucks him harder, fingertips claiming, bruising, holding him together. He swallows the sounds he knows Cas doesn't want to hear himself make, his cheeks wet, and he could blame it solely on Cas, but he needs this too. Needs to do this, be this, for Cas. It's not about him, not even about them, but he doesn't have anything else. He doesn't touch Cas's dick, not even when he feels Cas come, feels him squeeze impossibly tight, a sound like fabric tearing ripped from his throat, more pain than pleasure, and he swallows that too, so neither of them have to listen to it. Afterwards, they lie together silently, catching their breath, Dean trying to fit himself around the events of the day and the dark cloud fighting for territory inside Cas.

"Tell me?" Dean finally asks, his head on Cas's chest, fingers splayed low on his stomach.

Cas doesn't answer right away, but when he does, it's hoarse and quiet. "Went all the way up to the roof, then outside..."

Cas's voice wavers, and Dean brushes over it, even as Cas's fingers twitch on his back, the tension seeping into Dean, squeezing around both of them.

"Took me a while to get to the railing. And I- I looked... down."

Dean turns his head to press his lips against Cas's chest at the slight shudder that goes through him. He pictures Cas standing there in the dark, high up with the clouds, five years later, the image still as clear in Dean's mind now as it was then.

"Thought of what I would've looked like... splattered on the pavement fifty stories below."

Dean leans up on a hand, shifting until he's half on top of Cas, framing his face with his arms to create a little cocoon. He shakes his head slowly, leans their foreheads together.

"Thought about Gabe getting a phone call, having to come over to-"

He swallows Cas's next words in a kiss, doesn't want to hear anymore. Can't hear Cas say it. Can't let himself think about how damn close... he pushes the idea aside with sloppy kisses, tastes the salt on Cas's lips, and he can't let himself think about that either. Tonight, five years melt into nothing, and Cas looks exactly the same as he had then. He'd known, on some level, as soon as Cas opened the door. He'd seen the same distant, still look in his eyes he'd seen that night when the wind swirled around them suspended 600 feet above the city. He'd heard the same absence of life in his voice as he had back then, when Cas had been seconds removed from grabbing Dean's questionable heart and stepping off the edge with it. Half a decade, and they could still end up here. "You didn't," he whispers, as he feels Cas's fingers dig into his back, holding on with the same bruising force he had back then. Trusting Dean not to let him fall. "You didn't."

"You didn't let me."

(\\*/)

As far as birthdays go, Dean prefers the way they used to go. For years, he had tried to give Sam a birthday, usually made up of discounted gas station cake, and a well-meant but ultimately useless toy he stole when the underpaid attendant wasn't paying attention. Every year, Sam would smile and be grateful, feel special, and Dean soaked it up like a sponge. They could afford a real birthday now, with candles on a cake, dinner at a sit down restaurant that required a reservation, and friends. And yet, sitting at a table in a loud, crowded nightclub, surrounded by people he doesn't know and doesn't like, he longs for the taste of chalky gas station cheesecake when it was just the two of them.

His sour mood started around lunch time, when Sam texted him, told him to meet them at the restaurant where he'd booked a table for his fifteen closest friends. Most of them people Sam works with at the university, a few he'd gone to school with himself, all of them loud and bubbly, and vying for the birthday boy's attention. At dinner, he sat in between Cas and Gabriel, ignoring the small talk going on around him as the present he got for Sam burnt a hole in the pocket of his jeans. 

"You alright there, Dean-o?" Gabriel asked around a mouthful of pasta.

Dean nodded, glanced at Gabriel, and wondered at his chameleon-like ability to just adjust to whatever surroundings he found himself in. It's probably what made him a successful bar owner. He had chewed on his lip, splitting the skin that had only just started to heal from where Cas had knocked his head into his metal bedframe, after Dean had kneed him in the stomach. When he touched his fingers to his lips, they came away red, and he cursed under his breath. He caught Cas's eye on his other side, blank look for only a moment before Cas leaned over and kissed him, metallic taste mingling between their tongues. And fuck, Dean wanted to lean into it, chase that sharp edge of pain to remind him of how he got it in the first place.

He didn't talk to Sam at all over dinner, and by the time they step into the dimly lit club, he's counting the minutes until they can leave. He chases his bitterness with shots of cinnamon whiskey, enjoying the burn, hoping it will burn away the twinging feeling in his stomach. Sam seems to be enjoying himself, letting himself go a little, taking the drinks people keep bringing him until his movements become expansive, and he becomes the affectionate drunk that he usually reserves for holidays or particularly upsetting funerals. He flirts with everyone that comes near him, flashing dimples, floppy hair, and that smile that makes people feel like they're orbiting the sun. 

Dean tries to socialize, be "the big brother everyone has heard so much about!". He laughs, smiles, does everything that is expected of him, as he works his way through the better part of a bottle of who-knows-what, watching the sharp edges of the night soften until it no longer feels like he will cut himself on them. Cas is his shadow, next to him when he talks to another grad student in Sam's lab, who seems inclined neither to stop talking excessively about something called a phoneme restoration effect, nor to stop touching his arm every time she leans in to shout over the music. He's there when Dean is at the bar, ordering another bottle of whatever has made his fingers tingle, and he's there when Dean takes rainbow shots with Gabriel, meeting him somewhere between blue and indigo. Cas is silent, and _there_ , and Dean doesn't need to open his mouth to tell Cas how much he wishes he were anywhere else.

Time stretches and contracts, Dean's focus drawn back in by a drinking game at their other table, and the cute twink Sam has pulled into his lap. Pretty boyband looks like a compromise in Dean's mind, when he'd really thought his brother would take home one of the bubbly girls that had been hanging around him all night. The alcohol rolls in his stomach, glazed eyes taking in the group of them, driving home the realization that he just doesn't fit. These are Sam's friends, from Sam's world, with their theoretical frameworks, their tuition stipends, their talk of defences and proposals that knit together their little universe, and Dean... he's not a part of it.

Cas moves behind him, a hand on Dean's hip as he looks over Dean's shoulder, and Dean leans back against him a little. "Not the only one," Cas whispers in his ear.

Dean knows. He mixes in about as well as Cas does. Seems the only company they're not out of place in is each others'. His fingers squeeze over Cas's as he watches Sam and his friends, Sam and the twink - no older than early twenties, might be an undergrad - his thoughts tangled up and confusing, and he just wants to leave.

He lets Cas take his hand and pull him to the other side of the club. Follows him, eyes down in the dark on where he thinks Cas's feet are, but he knows where they're going, and his chest unclenches a little.

He lets Cas push him into a tiny cubicle in the bathroom, and as Cas fucks him over the toilet with nothing but spit for lube, jeans pushed out of the way only as far as necessary, he bites down on his sore lip, splitting it again. He pushes into Cas's hand wrapped around his neck, even if that's not something they do, not anymore, not after it was once done in anger. He embraces the pixelated view of pale blue tile in front of him like an old friend he used to like hanging out with a little too much, and when Cas bites down on his shoulder to muffle the sound of his orgasm, Dean comes over the wall in front of him with not even a hint of a thought for its next customer. Dean's eyes brush over the smiles when they return to the table, drawn to Sam who is eyeing the Bieber-wannabe in his lap as if he's tempted to drag him off to the restrooms and give it a go. Cas doesn't miss the way Dean feels himself wince, and if Dean looked a little closer, perhaps he would have notice Cas notice, and for once, notice and feel it.

It's minutes later when Sam announces he's done for the night and ready to go home because he's desperate for a bed.

"He's desperate for something alright," Cas mutters, pulling Dean towards a waiting cab, away from his brother who is piling into the backseat of another cab with his newfound friend.

"Cas..."

"He's not gonna take him home, Dean. Apparently the trust fund kid has a nice penthouse a few blocks from here."

The red lights of the taxi pull away from them, Dean's fingers closing around the little pouch in his pocket, nails digging in until he's fairly certain he split the skin on the palm of his hand. 

Cas stays close by his side on the drive over to Dean's place, as Dean tries to let the soft rock music playing over the speakers drown out his thoughts. The cab pulls up outside the building, and Cas starts to get out when Dean stops him.

"Can you sleep at your own place tonight?"

Cas raises an eyebrow, the worn leather of his jacket stretching across his shoulders as he turns to face Dean. "No."

"It wasn't a question."

"Then don't make it sound like one."

His jaw clenches tightly as he shakes his head. "You're sleeping at your own place tonight."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"How come?"

"Because I said so," Dean answers, opening the door of the cab.

"Woe is you, hm?" Cas smirks, knowing look in his eyes that sits heavily on every last one of Dean's buttons, like a child leaning on the horn of a car. 

"Leave me the fuck alone, Cas." He shifts until his feet are outside on the sidewalk, the cold air a shock compared to the warmth of the cab.

"So what? You're gonna spend the rest of the night wallowing in emo-misery, then be a bitch to everyone for the foreseeable future until you snap the fuck out of it?"

Dean steps out of the car, sways slightly on his feet, before he turns around and leans back down to smile at Cas sweetly. "Not everyone. Just you." He swings the door shut, and rushes to his apartment as if he's worried Cas will follow him. He knows better than that. They both do.

(\\*/)

He lives up to Cas's expectations, perhaps tries to outperform them. Sam returns around 9am the next morning, roughly half an hour after Dean has rid the apartment of everything alcoholic and dragged himself to bed, but he doesn't pass out, listens to Sam moving around while the headache creeps up behind his eyes. He keeps to himself, because he doesn't want to see Sam fucked out and hungover, and by the time Monday morning rolls around, Sam has not noticed anything out of the ordinary, and Dean is equal parts upset and relieved.

That evening, Sam catches the bus home, and Dean beats him home to find Cas sitting in front of the door to their apartment.

"What do you want?" Dean asks, unlocking the door and pushing inside, not doubting for a moment that Cas will follow.

"For you to get a handle on yourself," Cas pushes the door closed behind him, then advances slowly, looking angrier than he has in a while. It almost makes Dean take a step back.

"Why?" He tilts his head, cruel words forming in his mind, spilling forth before he can reconsider, before he can remember that he's not angry at Cas. "Can't fall asleep at night without someone to hold your hand?" He watches the anger on Cas's face slip off, replaced by that blank look of indifference that looks innocent to anyone who doesn't know him. Dean knows it's Cas putting several yards of mental distance between himself and the situation, and he knows it always leads to a fight, always makes them say the worst things they can think of, hurt as much as they're being hurt. He puts his feet a bit further apart, as if he's subconsciously preparing for a fight, but fuck, that's exactly what he's doing.

"'S rich, coming from you."

Dean balls his fists, nails digging into his palms sharply, and he tries to focus on the pain, tries to lure himself away from what he's about to walk into. "Fuck you."

"Yeah, fuck me," Cas smirks, "that's exactly the problem."

"What is?"

"You can't live in the real world. Can't accept things are the way they are, and they're not going to change." Cas walks closer, until he's about two feet away from Dean.

"I can't live in the real world?" Dean notices his voice rise with detached alarm. "I'm not the one who tried to throw himself off the roof of a hotel, am I?"

If his words hurt Cas at all, he's not letting on, his facial expression unchanged, a mask of calm Dean doesn't believe he feels. "No. You're the one who has to live a pretend life, even now. Because if not, you'll drive yourself insane." Cas narrows his eyes, studies Dean, the weight of his gaze too heavy. "Or more insane than you already are."

"You're fucking nuts," he hisses, trying to ignore Cas's words, trying to let them slip off his skin without sinking in, but he's a lot more porous than he used to be.

"It's quite pathetic, really," Cas says, right in front of Dean now, barely tilting his head up to maintain eye contact. "Think I don't know why you've been such a shit the last few days? Hell, weeks, even."

"Shut up."

"Jealousy doesn't become you, Dean."

It's the tripwire that sets him off. He reaches for Cas, pushes him back with both hands, sending him toppling into the table. A lamp and some glasses tumble to the floor. Cas is down for no more than two second before he lunges for Dean, slamming him up against the wall, Dean's head spinning when it bounces off the unforgiving concrete.

"Get the fuck off me," Dean shouts, fingers in Cas's hair pulling back sharply, and when that does not have the desired effect, he rams his knee up against Cas's groin.

Cas groans, doubles over in pain, clutching himself, his breathing heavy and strained, and Dean's lips twist into a smile. Cas glances up at him, and there's no warning when his fist pulls back, hitting Dean squarely on the cheek. "I'll fucking kill you."

"Will you two fucking stop?" Sam hisses, closing the front door behind him, as searing pain spreads across the left side of Dean's face. "I could hear you guys halfway across the parking lot."

"I don't give a flying fuck who can hear," Cas snarls, not moving an inch away from Dean, who's blinking rapidly, trying to stop the world from swimming out of focus.

"Yeah, well good for you. Now get the fuck out of here."

"I beg your pardon?"

Dean closes his eyes, picks up on the challenging edge to Cas's voice. He knows what it means, can see exactly where it's going, but he doesn't have the energy or the motivation to stop it. It's as if everything just flowed out of him with that last blow. He doesn't care anymore; let them fucking kill each other.

"I said," Sam says, taking a step closer, "get out."

"I don't think so." Cas turns his head around to look at Sam, or scowl at him more like. "How about you get out. I'm not done talking to your brother yet."

"I think you'll find you are done talking to Dean."

Dean looks between the two of them, and he should probably do something to keep this from spiraling, but he doesn't.

"Is that so?" Cas straightens up and turns around fully, words dripping with mockery bordering on contempt as he takes a step toward Sam.

"Yeah."

Cas squares his shoulders, considers Sam. "I'm not. So fuck off and let us talk in private."

In a way, Dean admires Cas's absolute lack of self-preservation. He doesn't need a fancy science degree to see Sam is a second removed from smashing Cas's face in, and normal people would back off in his shoes, but Cas isn't - never was - normal.

Two steps closer have Sam grabbing Cas by his shirt, pulling him in, and although Dean can't see Cas's face from where he's standing, he knows there will be no fear in his eyes; he just doesn't give a fuck. Dean wouldn't put it past him to push Sam into breaking his nose, just to prove that he can.

"I'm fucking sick of you hanging around here, around him," Sam growls, the sound making Dean shiver unpleasantly. "And this whole sense of superiority you got going on? Thinking you know him inside out? I've got news for you, you fucking don't."

"No?" Too upbeat, too pleasant, and it sets off some implicit warning signal in Dean's mind, even if he can't figure out why. It has him push away from the wall, move closer until he's standing next to both of them.

Glancing at Cas's face gives him nothing, complete blank, classic fucking poker face, and he knows firsthand how infuriating it is to be faced with that disinterest when you're worked up over something.

"Slow down, alright?" He says quietly, not touching either of them, not wanting to tip either of them over the edge of whatever is keeping them in place.

"That's right," Sam nods, knuckles whitening from the grip he has on Cas's thin shirt. "You have no fucking clue. Think you know him better than anyone? I've been here nearly his whole life."

Cas hums, and Dean sees something flash in Cas's eyes. Something predatory, and it's not good, shortcircuits his mind, because maybe on some level, he knows exactly what's coming. Not on any operational level, where he can actually do something to stop it. All he can do is stand there and wait for the other shoe to crush his makeshift sense of stability, of normalcy.

"I know every thought in his head, everything that ever happened to him, everything that makes him who he is, and I know you're toxic. You need to be erased."

"Every thought, huh? Everything... that ever happened to him..." Cas tilts his head, pretends to chew on the words, and Dean's heart stops beating in that instant.

"Cas-"

"16th of November, 2003. You woke up in bed with Dean. Naked. Both of you. He assured you he passed out next to you after you'd done drugs together, and he couldn't remember what happened." Cas's voice sounds mechanical, rattling on as if he's reading off an autocue.

Dean's stomach flips over itself before trying to crawl up his throat. His fingers go numb, heart pounding loudly in his ears, almost blocking out what is happening. Almost. But not quite.

Sam frowns, confusion evident before he raises an eyebrow at Cas. "Yeah?"

The smirk on Cas's face is pure evil, a nasty grimace Dean can't liken to anything, but it leaves him nearly breathless as the fabric of his reality tears. "Are you that fucking dumb?"

Dean has to look away, leaning a hand on the wall, his breathing heavy, blood rushing in his ears. Not happening. He glances up to find Sam silent, grip loosened on Cas's shirt, uncertainty bleeding into the corners of his face, leaving Dean nauseous.

Cas smiles cruelly, licks his lips slowly as he never takes his eyes off Sam. "I guess you are."

"The fuck are you... Dean? What the fuck is he talking about?"

Sam is looking at him now, and Dean has never wanted to look away from someone as much in his life. Instead, he glares daggers at Cas, feels the hatred rush through him more potent than he ever has before. "Shut your fucking-"

"Come on, Sammy, you never wondered?" Cas taunts, not moving from where he's standing, even though Sam has let go of him. "Never thought it weird Dean was walking funny the next couple of days?"

Sam stares at Cas open-mouthed, as if he knows what Cas is saying, but can't add it up in a way that makes sense. Dean can relate.

"Never wondered how you ended up with scratches on your back?"

Once Sam finds his voice, it sounds flat, unconvincing. "I fucked some girl we took home with us."

"Yes," Cas nods, "you did. And then she left, and you and Dean got fucked up, and then you fucked your brother."

Dean's head falls back against the wall, eyes slipping shut, the carefully constructed snow globe he's spent the last seven years living in shattering, raining confetti of betrayal around them. He can't look at Sam, can't look at the disgust, the moment everything, every single fucking thing, will click. He could kill Cas. Has thought about it many times before, but it's never seemed like such a reality as it does right now. He wants to rip the words out of the air and shove them back down Cas's throat until he chokes on them. Words spoken carelessly, callously, as if they mean nothing, could never break anything, let alone _everything_.

"No," Sam says, voice hoarse, lost, but Dean hears the heaviness of knowing the truth. Sam believes Cas, and there is no point in saying Cas is lying, because why would he?

"Yes, you did," Cas says, catching Dean's eyes when Dean finally opens his own, and the smug satisfaction on Cas's face is almost too much. Cas sucks on his bottom lip, ignores Sam, and his next words are all for Dean. "You did, Sam, but don't worry. He liked it. In fact, he liked it enough that he sometimes pretends I'm you when I fuck him."

The final nail, the most condemning part of the whole sorry tale, and the thing he will never be able to hide, push back where it belongs, ever again. It's out in the open now, the funhouse glasses distorting everything that came before this. Twisting it into the worst version of himself that he resents and can never deny. He wants to explain it to Sam, put things in a context that is unlikely to make a difference, and he wants to kill Cas. He feels Sam's eyes on him, and tears prickle in his eyes, hot and unexpectedly at the look on his brother's face. "Sammy, I can..."

Sam raises a hand, then looks away from him quickly, as if he can catch the fucked-upness of all of this simply by looking at Dean. It seems all the blood has left his face, washing him out. Dean waits for Sam to start shouting, accuse him, reach into the past and pull everything that suddenly may have a different inflection to him out and throw it at Dean's feet, but Sam says nothing. He just turns around, very slowly, and then he walks out the door, closing it behind him with a soft click, leaving Dean alone with his worst nightmare made real.

The silence is thundering, neither of them moving, only the sound of Dean's breathing underneath it. Cas told Sam. Everything. Not just what happened, but what is still happening. His thoughts refuse to focus on anything for longer than a second, and he can't see a future more than three seconds at a time. When he finally faces Cas, Cas's face is back to blank, no response to what happened at all, and it's gasoline on Christmas candles. It doesn't get him so angry that he wants to break Cas, rip him apart. It runs deeper than that, comes from somewhere far darker than anger, and he lets it show on his face when he meets Cas's eyes.

"I should've let you die."

(\\*/)

_Two weeks later_

"This is Dean."

"..."

"Hello?"

"..."

"Who is this?" Dean asks, sitting up a little straighter on the couch, the clock blinking a bright-red 3:12AM at him. "I said who the fuck-"

"Hi."

His heart skips a beat, then takes up a steady drum in the back of his throat. "Cas."

"Yeah."

"What do you want?"

"Not sure."

He closes his eyes, fingers shaking a little, and just hearing Cas's voice in his ear should not ease the tension in his shoulders. Shouldn't. But it does.

"How've you been?"

Dean looks around the room, as if the answer is hidden in empty bottles and broken glass, or maybe the pile of Sam's laundry in the corner of the room, mocking him. "Fucked up," he whispers, fingers clenching tightly around his phone.

"Sam?"

Dean closes his eyes, wills his lips around the words. "Still lives here."

A beat. "Did you talk?"

"Cas..."

"Yeah, I know."

Dean knows he knows. Doesn't need the words, none of it needs saying out loud. Cas knows enough to know that Sam wouldn't just walk out on him. He also knows enough to know Sam will not bring it up willingly, will take his time turning it over in his head, then suddenly breaching the subject when Dean least expects it. Hearing Cas's voice shouldn't make the guilt burn like acid in his stomach, but he hasn't been able to forget what he said to Cas. It wasn't as big as avoiding Sam's hurt, or sidestepping his self-loathing, but it was still significant and only the second most awful thing to happen.

"I didn't mean it," he says, barely a whisper.

"I'm sorry," is Cas's equally quiet response.

Dean breathes out slowly, cradles the phone like a lifeline, his next words as inevitable as they have always been, would always remain, regardless of anything else. "Can I come over?"

"Always."


End file.
